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The science of skin: everything you need to know about your body’s biggest organ – and how to protect it

Rather than a mere casing for the body, doctors consider the skin a complex, vital organ. It is famously the largest organ in the body, the size of a single bedsheet and three times heavier than the brain. It is our frontline defence against the outside world with all its sharp edges and germs, sunlight and pollution. It ensures we don’t get too hot or too cold, or absorb or lose too much water. It’s our tactile connection to the world, a sensory surface that surrounds us. It is a display that’s used to assess us in an instant: our heritage, age, health, emotions. The skin is far from a lifeless surface: zoom in and you’ll find it teeming with bacteria, viruses and fungi, not to mention minuscule,…

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 Our skin is being turned into a digital interface

The largest organ in the human body is an interface. Every square millimetre of our skin is connected to the nervous system and receives constant feedback through our sense of touch: friction from our clothes, breeze on our face, the press of gravity against our bodies when we lie down. It’s the only sense we can’t switch off. You can wear a blindfold or plug your ears – but you can’t stop feeling.

 The skin is a very important (and our largest) organ: what does it do?

So, what exactly is our skin meant to do and how does it impact our life?

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